"What Now?" Feedback

[Johnny Rebel]

Hey all,

Contrary to popular belief, we're not all immune to trying to become better writers!

I'd like some feedback on my latest role-play, "What Now?" from Overdrive last week. I didn't have a great feel for it but honestly I got caught up and didn't have the time to flesh it out as much as I'd like.

Thanks in advance!

Link here: What Now?

[Johnny Rebel]

Anybody?

[SalTal]

Hey Rebel!

When I saw that you bumped this, I was so glad. Otherwise I’d have missed it and have been all sad-faced because I didn’t get to comment on it. It wasn’t that I was ignoring yours; I just plain never knew it was here.

Much like I said with TMarv a few weeks back, I’d love to see a top champion Rebel here in APW. I’ve always liked your character and style, though we’ve never really crossed paths (which is a shame, I think).

I want to start with some numbers. You know I’m a fan of the long rp’s, so pushing a word limit to the extremes is always something I’m an advocate of. So when I look at a promo, I usually check to see how ‘full’ it is. By my count, your promo was at 3627. That’s 350 words hat you’re not saying that your opponent might be. When there’s a limit, you need to make every word count. So that would be the first tip I’d throw your way: Use all the words available.

The next thing was the amount of ‘actions’ you had in this. When I chrunched some numbers, less than a fifth (or 20%) was actual descriptive, action-based writing. I know you’ve got the same style as Level-One and others going (of character-based stuff separate and first, then straight-out smack talk second) and I’m not saying you should change your style - you do what works for you, and this works. But in a game where we’re really writing a visual thing (that is we’re writing what someone would see) I’m always a fan off good, purposeful description. Dialogue after dialogue, to me, is hard to wrap my head around unless there is nice little caveats of description that tells me how I’m meant to understand what he’s saying.

I’ll show you and example from your promo. It’s near to the start:

“Ah,” he sighed. “It looks like you made the right choice, Rebel.” Felipe lifts his glass in the air and nods in Rebel’s direction.

“What can I say?” Rebel answers back. “You and Level-One made quite the convincing argument. How could I turn down the opportunity to set the clocks back on APW and turn this organization in to a place where people actually earn their stripes rather than having them handed out by President Jeff!”

What I want to know here is what Rebel thinks about everything associated with him joining the Sindicate here. Is he happy or angry? If he’s angry, is he angry with himself for having done it or angry with APW that it’s come to this? Is he going to be getting along with Felipe, or is he just going to be tolerating him? Like, what are the emotions in all of this? It doesn’t have to be excessive - it does have to be meaningful:

“Ah,” he sighed. “It looks like you made the right choice, Rebel.” Felipe lifts his glass in the air with a self-satisfied nods to Rebel.

“What can I say?” Rebel answers back, almost choking on his own words. “You and Level-One made quite the convincing argument.” He turns from Felipe, hardly able to look at him anymore, such was his disgust with the man. “How could I turn down the opportunity to set the clocks back on APW and turn this organization in to a place where people actually earn their stripes rather than having them handed out by President Jeff!”

Or maybe:

“Ah,” he sighed. “It looks like you made the right choice, Rebel.” Felipe lifts his glass in the air with a triumphant nob to Rebel.

“What can I say?” Rebel answers back with a smug, satisfied grin. “You and Level-One made quite the convincing argument.” He catches his reflection in the car window, and boy does he look like a man on top of the world now. “How could I turn down the opportunity to set the clocks back on APW and turn this organization in to a place where people actually earn their stripes rather than having them handed out by President Jeff!”

See how just, you know, a few little bits of extra information can change the whole feel of that exchange? It would save you words later on, cut out dialogue where you’re having Rebel actually explain what he’s thinking, and gives you more time and space to trash your opponents.

Obviously those two bits aren’t very good in and of themselves, but I just really wanted to point out that meaningful description can go a long way, and that was an area I thought you might want to work on.

As for your actual dialogue, it’s very good. It all flows, it makes sense, and I don’t get lost. You keep it simple, and it works. It’s as good as it can get - just work on enhancing it with the description of what’s happening around the words.

You have a lot of non-match stuff in here. I know there’s the argument to be made for character development in, but it should always be less than the half threshold. You’re below half (that is, your trash talk is more than half) so that’s good. But when it’s segmented like your style, and I go through all the CD stuff to get to the trash talk, it seems like it’s a lot more than it really is. Again, I don’t want you to change your style, but experimenting every now and then - maybe weaving sections together, or having the CD stuff directly relate to the match rather than purely CD or storyline stuff.

I’m worried that you might take that last paragraph to heart, or think I’m a loon. It’s had for me to write what I really mean by that. I’m definitely not saying cut out the CD, or that reading your CD was laborious (it was enjoyable - gave me great insight into Rebel). I think what I’m really trying to say is really make it count by threading in match references in there ... or something.

I loved your trash talk. Absolutely loved it. One reason was because I couldn’t find a single swear word at all. And that’s something that I like. I described myself as ‘realistic’ when it comes to promos - and this is pretty realistic. You actually hear this type of talking and trashing on TV. You don’t hear swearing all that much. So well done on that.

It was meaningful, cutting, and deep. You touched on all the important points - the past, the match your team, etc. Every now and then some wording would pop up that didn’t seem natural (ie. was a bit formal or something) but not enough that it detracted. So I can’t tell you to work on the trash talk because anything I’d say would take away from it.

Overall, it was a strong, solid, good promo. That descriptive stuff would push it into the higher levels in my mind. Others might think differently, but that’s just generally what I find is done really well in the top promos by the top writers.

Keep it up! I can’t wait to see Rebel strutting around with the Undisputed Title!

[Johnny Rebel]

Thanks Sally! You made some really great points and I'm looking forward to implementing some changes for the next go-round.